Mottainai: Can we save the planet with ancient Japanese philosophy?

In environmental studies, islands are often noted as isolated places where people have caused problems by exhausting local resources.

The most famous example is Easter Island. The builders of the famous statues, aware that they were almost completely isolated from the rest of the world, must surely have realised that their very existence depended on the limited resources of the small island.

Yet they exhausted its resources anyway.

This is often used as a metaphor for what we are doing to the planet; an idea made popular by Clive Ponting in his A Green History of the World.

In an increasingly globalised world, island nations have access to outside resources — but the island mentality remains in countries such as Japan, which has developed a particular environmental awareness articulated concisely by the word mottainai.

In recent years, the concept of mottainai has been popularised by Japanese and international media, as well as through children's literature and in academia.

Despite the pop culture applications, the word itself is said to have origins in Buddhist philosophy and religious syncretism.

It has long been used to express the feeling of regret that carries with it metaphysical, ethical, and aesthetic connotations.

As a concept, mottainai reflects the feeling that arises from the awareness of both the interdependence and impermanence of all things.

'The four Rs'

Thanks to Wangari Maathai, an accomplished political and environmental activist, mottainai has come to be thought of as an all-encompassing Japanese term for the four Rs: reduce, reuse, recycle and respect.

When an object turns 100 years old, it attains a spirit and becomes a tsukumogami.

The concept that 100-year-old objects are imbued with spirits was an outgrowth of the Shinto reverence for objects and sacred spaces. A modern day ritual known as ningyō kuyō collects unwanted but not unloved dolls and, in a kind of mock funeral, prays for them and thanks the dolls for years of fond memories.

Even though the dolls are not technically tsukumogami, a ritual is performed to purify and drive out the spirits within.

Both Shinto and Buddhist sects perform the ritual, though funerals are typically the realm of Buddhist priests. The general perception is that the ritual is necessary to help the passage of the spirit from the realm of the living to the realm of the dead.

This reverence for objects is commonly applied to katana, teapots and calligraphy brushes, but also to more mundane items such as pencil boxes, room dividers and umbrellas.

A life of frugality leads to enlightenment

While Mottainai has been identified in such manifestations, it is for the most part understood as having its origins in Buddhist philosophy—particularly the concept of pratītyasamutpāda, or dependent origination.

Buddhist environmentalism is said to have begun with Gary Snyder in the early 1950s. Among Snyder's contributions to eco-Buddhism was his ecological reading of Indra's net — a metaphor used to illustrate the concept of dependent origination.

Eco-Buddhist David Barnhill describes the theory as "relational holism", simultaneously affirming the primacy of relationships among particulars, but also the primacy of the whole.

It is here that we find Buddhism and ecology share a common vocabulary — particularly in terms of interconnectedness — which cautions us to be mindful of our actions so as to minimise suffering and not be wasteful.

The Buddhist monastic tradition emphasises a life of frugality in order to concentrate on the attainment of enlightenment.

In fact, stories of ascetic denial in Buddhism are not uncommon, and such stories lend credence to the belief that mottainai is Buddhist in origin.

It is within this move towards frugality that a Japanese aesthetic begins to emerge from mottainai as a concept of waste.

Mottainai attempts to communicate the inherent value in a thing and encourage using objects fully or all the way to the end of their lifespan.

Leave no grain of rice in your bowl; if a toy breaks, repair it; and take good care of everything.